On 01/02/2013 05:13 PM, tdadamemd-spamblock-@excite.com wrote:> Howdy. That was my first post to this forum and I'm glad to be here. I will elaborate on what I was saying...>> The purpose of my post was in effort toward correcting misconceptions, or more accurately to improve less-than-optimal conceptions. I say it that way because I do not believe in the view that "Pi is wrong", as the current movement seems to like to say. On the contrary, I see Pi to be perfectly accurate. The problem with Pi is that it is not fundamental. And let's be clear that I'm not saying that Tau should be treated "in the same way as pi". My position is that Tau should be used *instead of* Pi. I am not aware of a single use of Pi where it would not be an improvement to replace it with Tau. This is also the position of the "Pi is Wrong" movement, however they go too far when they take the step of calling it "wrong". There is nothing illogical about Pi. It simply is not fundamental, and there is nothing "wrong" with not being fundamental. That would be like saying "Water is Wrong" because you learned that its constituent parts are Hydrogen and Oxygen.>> You say that "Pi crops up in so many places", but the position of this movement is that it is not Pi that has cropped up. It is Tau, and we have contorted that by putting it into terms of Pi instead of the fundamental number.>> And while were on the quest for improvement, it would be excellent to scrutinize terminology like "mathematical constant". Yes, it is accurate to say that Pi is a mathematical constant. But so is absolutely any other number! Pick a number. Be it complex, rational, whatever - that number will never change. It remains constant, and belonging to the realm of math it is therefore a mathematical constant. What makes Tau special is not that it is a mathematical constant, but rather that it is a Geometric Constant of Proportionality for the Circle.><snip>

Hello, and your reasoning is way too philosophical for me. I'm just a dumb research engineer who uses math to quantify observed results. I certainly am interested in the properties of particular constants both mathematical and physical as they describe what we observe in nature. I really don't care how folks label them, just how these constants are used in problem solving. My background is primarily electromagnetic theory (antennas and wave propagation) and I use Pi, e, and sqrt(-1) quite a bit. Sincerely,